{"id":23520,"date":"2025-10-28T10:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T10:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/23520\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T10:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T10:28:08","slug":"stuart-city-manager-terminated-following-narrow-vote-at-commission-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/23520\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuart city manager terminated following narrow vote at commission meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

STUART, Fla. \u2014 In a narrow 3-2 vote, Stuart commissioners have moved forward with the termination of City Manager Mike Mortell<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Commissioner Shawn Reed spearheaded the firing, citing ongoing internal friction between Mortell and the commission.<\/p>\n

Tonight, dozens turned out\u2014just weeks after Commissioner Shawn Reed began the process<\/a> that led to the firing of Mortell, a long-time city employee.<\/p>\n

WATCH: What Stuart residents said about firing Mike Mortell<\/p>\n

Stuart city manager terminated following narrow vote at commission meeting<\/p>\n

There were voices on both sides. Some spoke up in support of keeping Mortell. <\/p>\n

“Firing a city manager via trial by Facebook is wrong, wrong,” said Steven Vitalli.<\/p>\n

Others pushed for his removal.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Reed cited friction between Mortell and the commission, among other issues, that prompted his push to terminate Mortell. Mortell himself admitted he saw it coming.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Region Martin County<\/p>\n

Stuart city manager controversy: Resident calls for removal of 3 commissioners<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

When the vote came, some commissioners called for a plan to address Reed\u2019s concerns. But Reed refused to withdraw his motion.<\/p>\n

It ended in a 3-2 vote, one that Mortell claims he knew about weeks ago.<\/p>\n

“I’m deeply grateful for everyone’s support,\u201d Mortell said. \u201cFunny part is, I knew before I even got here tonight that I was fired. Go look at my office\u2014 I moved out last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mortell was officially fired without cause, meaning taxpayers are on the hook<\/a> to pay for 20 weeks of his salary, equaling $85,000. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STUART, Fla. \u2014 In a narrow 3-2 vote, Stuart commissioners have moved forward with the termination of City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2169,18066,1160,3306,171,173,172,959],"class_list":["post-23520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-commission","tag-fired","tag-martin-county","tag-mike-mortell","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-stuart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}